My new lyrics to the tune: “I´m dreaming of a white Christmas”

I´m dreaming of a warm Christmas
Unlike the Christmases I know
Where the sun is shining, and waves are rolling
A walk on the beach is where I’ll go…

It has been a very busy 24 hours…After I wrote yesterday about my first week in Venezuela, we headed off to Yanitza (Manny´s sister)´s house by the beach. The house is in La Guairra and is nestled up in a mountain above the coast. Apparently, it is usually a pretty fast drive to the house, but we hit some traffic on the way there, so it took us a lot longer than it would have without the traffic. Driving here seems like I´m in the middle of a Bond movie… There are almost no rules on the road. They have traffic lanes painted on the road…but they seem to serve more as a guideline than a restriction for traffic. They use the shoulder as an extra traffic lane, and if you can fit between two lanes of traffic on your motorcycle or in your car, you can just go in between the cars, even if there isn´t a specific lane there. In fact, they have “Moto-Taxi´s” (where the “taxi” is a motorcycle rather than a car) because the motorcycles will just weave in and out of lanes, and will drive between the lanes of traffic. If there is an inch to spare, they will drive on through. And in heavy traffic, drivers won´t wait for someone to allow space for you to merge into the lane (like we do in the U.S.). Instead, the driver will just start moving into traffic, even if they are only inches away from the other cars, and will just force their way into traffic. I do NOT want to drive in Venezuela!

For dinner, once we got to the house, Manny´s family cooked “Pernil” (Pork) in a “Fogon” (over a fire). We also had Hallacas, the traditional Christmas meal. The best way that I can describe Hallacas is that it is similar to a tamale. There is meat, tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, and olives all contained in a corn-meal mixture, that is then wrapped in a type of leaf (although I don´t know what type) to cook it in boiling water. There´s probably cheese in it too…but I can´t remember exactly. We spent the evening hanging out on the terrace of the porch overlooking the ocean, listened to music, talked, and Manny and I danced a bit (and Manny´s family is very impressed with my salsa dancing ). Also we enjoyed a fireworks show from a couple of neighboring houses. They do fireworks here during Christmas/New Year´s. In fact, right now, I am hearing fireworks going on in the parking lot… (And actually, when I first got to Venezuela, I didn´t know that the sounds were fireworks…they sounded like shots being fired! You can bet I was glad to learn that it was just fireworks! ) The fireworks that their neighbors were doing were the big fireworks that they use in the 4th of July fireworks shows in Utah. It was pretty surreal watching a fireworks show over the ocean on Christmas Eve.

The kids were all still awake around midnight, so they were gathered into a room (away from the Christmas tree) and were told that they couldn´t come out or else el niño Jesus/Santa Claus wouldn´t stop at the house. Oh, and I was a bit wrong in my last posting…el niño Jesus and Santa Claus are kind of used interchangably here. Of course they don´t think that Santa Claus is the baby Jesus, or viceversa, but both are referred to when talking about who leaves the presents. Also, before midnight, the baby Jesus in their nativity scene is covered. At midnight (and while the kids were all gathered in a bedroom), they uncovered the baby Jesus in the nativity.

So, while the kids were all gathered, waiting for el niño Jesus/Santa Claus to bring the presents, one of Manny´s cousins and his family was up at the house with us, and he walked by the room saying “Ho, Ho, Ho.” When Shofia (Manny´s neice) heard this, she desperately wanted to come out so she could say thank you to el niño Jesus/Santa for all the presents!!! How cute! Unfortunately, I was tired and fell asleep before the presents were put into place under the tree, so I didn´t get to see the kids all open their presents after their anxious anticipation in the bedroom, but I hear that they were very excited about what they got. Shofia wanted una bicicleta (a bike)…and she got a Barbie bike! Shofia actually reminds me a lot of myself when I was younger…and not just because she´s super-cute ;) For example, when we are walking somewhere, like around the house, or at the mall, or the beach, she doesn´t just walk, she dances. My mom will tell you that when she took me to the grocery store, I would dance as we went through the aisles…

That night, we slept in an outdoor bedroom! It was covered by a terrace, and had three walls. Where the fourth wall would be, it was just open with a view of the ocean. It was warm enough that we just slept with a sheet…no blankets needed. It rained during the night, but since the room is covered, we didn´t get wet. The mountains here are covered in a green blanket of trees and plants. I´ve never seem so much green—even in the rainiest areas of Oregon and Washington. We awoke to the sound of birds chirping. I couldn´t see the birds in the trees, but I enjoyed the sound of the birds singing “good morning and Feliz Navidad” to us :) In the morning, I had found that el niño Jesus had left me a colorful weaved cloth bag with “Venezuela” and a couple of birds on it. I also received a really nice beaded bracelet from Shofia and Shiloh. We have also received several other gifts since we got here.

It was cloudy and rainy in the morning and we were worried that the day on the beach that was planned wouldn´t be sunny…but it cleared up just in time for us to head down from the house to the beach. The beach is called Playa Tarma (playa is the word for “beach”). In this area the waves were too strong to swim in the ocean, but we enjoyed sitting on a pile of large rocks where we were splashed by the waves. I have some fun pictures of this to share once we get home and I can put the pictures online…so stay tuned… Manny and I also walked along the beach (…ahh…how romantical…) and our feet sunk a few inches into the sand as the waves came up on the sand. I think Manny may have missed a couple of places when he sprayed the sunscreen on me…because when we got home, I noticed that I had a pink spot on my upper arm (tricep area) and a stripe of pink down each of my forearms. But the pink has already faded away, so it´s all good :)

On our drive home to Caricuou (not sure if I´m spelling that right), where Manny´s mom´s apartment is located (in the Caracas area), we drove by mango, coconut, avocado, plaintain, and banana trees. Plantains are similar to bananas, but aren´t exactly the same. You wouldn´t believe how big the avocados are here! I didn´t when I first saw them. In the U.S., a big avocado is probably 4” around. The avocados here about the size of a football! The mangos in this area will probably be fully ripe and will fall from the trees in about a month, but Manny thinks that the mangos on Margarita Island will probably be ripe when we get there. I am looking forward to eating a mango fresh from the tree in Margarita! Also on the drive home, not far from the beach, I noticed an iguana at least 1 1/2’-2’ long just hanging out on a wall by the sidewalk. Apparently iguanas are pretty common around the area. I don´t think I´ve ever seen an iguana that wasn´t in a cage in PetSmart…so that was pretty cool for me.

Tonight and tomorrow we will just be hanging out here in the Caracas area, and probably visiting some of Manny´s friends here. Then early Saturday morning, we will be heading to Puerto La Cruz (again, not sure about the spelling), from which we will take a ferry to Margarita Island, which is a couple of hours north, into the Carribean, by ferry. From what I hear, Margarita Island is even better than any of the beaches or ocean views we´ve had already…and I´m afraid I might refuse to leave once I get there. ;)

To conclude, here are just a few things I´ve learned since being in Venezuela:

*The cure for a bruise is butter and salt

*There are stray dogs everywhere :( We see them everywhere we go looking for food on sidewalks and in the garbage bags that have been left out…it makes me very sad!
*There aren´t any Wal-Marts here, but there are McDonalds, and they always seem to be very busy…YUCK!

*Fruit juice here is actually FRUIT JUICE! No concentrates, nothing added, just the pure, natural fruits blended in a blender…SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!

*The drink that I talked about that we had at breakfast on our first morning here is called Papelon con limon. I was wrong about the drink having honey in it. It is just made from the solid sugar cane and lemon.

*Sometimes you can be in a whole different continent and still feel at home. Explanation: on our drive to Valencia last weekend, I saw a road sign that said “Indiana” with an arrow to the left and “San Diego” and “Valencia” with an arrow to the right.

*Here, they put knives outside in a cross (or an X) to keep the rain away. (They said we should do this when we get back to Utah to keep the snow away…hehehe)